Riding the Candy High

“The giant Easter bonnet is great camouflage when the kids come looking for my secret store of pastel candy corn.”

What is it with kids wanting to walk around in their socks outside?

That question has absolutely nothing to do with what I’m talking about today, but seriously, I just don’t get the appeal. Then again, maybe there’s a joy about dragging your brand new Hello Kitty feet covers through the mud I’m missing out on in my old age.

Note to self: Put on socks and walk around in the sandbox this weekend to verify whether I’m a crappy parent or not.

Second note to self: You probably don’t want to know. Scrap experiment. Keep herding children blindly.

Really, the sock thing is one of the more normal things the children are attempting to do today. The twenty-four hours after Easter are fairly brutal on the blood glucose level front. I blame the Easter bunny. He or she was extremely reckless with the candy-buying, begging the question, should a plastic grocery bag every weigh more than a baby calf?

When I get the chance to pick up a baby calf, I circle back around to that. But me thinks not.

“Let’s dump them all out on her bed.”

Before I could open my eyes, I heard the unmistakable crumple of plastic and the rattling of candy. Peering between my eyelids, I observed Sundance poised to dump a pound of jelly beans all over the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“We found these, and now we’re going to dump them out and eat them.”

“Interesting. Those were your father’s and my private reserve jelly beans. Well, have at it.”

“You want some?”

“No, but your brother’s awake. Don’t leave him out.”

You probably think I’m a terrible person for letting them overdose two days in a row, but I subscribe to the Easter/Halloween rule that it’s better to let the children freak out and eat all the sugar, rather than listen to them whine for it for seven days straight. I don’t hate myself. I’m not Maria Montessori, but I don’t hate myself.

By about 10am, the chocolate tap ran dry. My saddlebags rejoiced. The children started going bug eyed and displaying all the usual withdrawal symptoms:

Searching for stray jelly beans in the couch
Tackling siblings who still had a rogue Hershey Kiss
Drooling at the mouth
Inability to accept the supply was all gone
Offering to eat lunch in exchange for any hidden product I had left

I’m a seasoned veteran on the Easter front. Nine brothers and sisters and countless holidays later, I’m living proof you can eat a baker’s dozen Reeses you stole from under your siblings bed and make it to next year.

I have high hopes for the kids, especially after I get them to stop looking at me like I’m hoarding extra chocolate bunnies …because I probably am.